Has anyone seen this person perform? Can you tell me anything about it? He's supposed to be visiting my sons Dojo in Feb 2008 and giving a Seminar in sword technique. Have been trying to find additional info on this person.I have my son signed up for this Seminar. So kind of curious.

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It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.

Quote:I met him one time. He introduced himself to me as "Master Dana Abbott".

Quote:I won't speak to his credits or history. But the gallery of photos with him next to all the "famous" luminaries of martial arts and martial arts movies are really funny. They're badly photoshop'ed (reworked) pics of himself stuck into totally different photos of guys like Steve (Hebi No Dojo) Kaufman, etc. You can even see the digital cut marks.

Quote:A gentleman who writes to people asking for grades and actualy 'prints' his own certification. He also has a nasty hobby of forming home page budo associations, calling himself the president and inviting people to join to give himself credibility!

To be honest I don't know about chanbara and he may be great there. But people who call themselves master, grant themselves high ranks and certifications, and photoshops himself into pictures of great martial artists... It just doesn't make me want to go out of my way to meet the man.

But again, that may just be overcompensation for a perceived inadequacy in his practice, and as far as chanbara goes he may be great. I just wouldn't do Iai with the man.

Yeah, E-budo is a little mucked up right now while they do some major overhauls to the site. As a consequence only registered members can view the site, and registration is deactivated. Hopefully it will be back up soon.

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Iaido -
Breaking down bad habits,
and building new ones.

Marmaduke, Here's the way I see it, since you asked for opinions. Although I don't personally care for Dana Abbott, if I remember the conversation correctly Splice is not quite correct in his quotes. The first quote is definitely about Mr. Abbott (I'm the one that made the original statement). The subsequent quotes were actually referring to another fellow that is part of the same chanbara organization to which Mr. Abbott belongs. Bear in mind that I didn't bother to go back through the old e-budo thread and verify this, it's just from my sometimes less than stellar memory.

From what I have seen of Mr. Abbott's cutting and kata, I have been singularly unimpressed with his level of competence. What I've seen is sloppy and uncontrolled, which just shouldn't happen with someone of the stature to which he believes he is entitled. On the other hand, I've had many conversations with one of his senior students, who seems to be a very genuine and thoughtful individual. Therefore, I don't think that any seminar which Mr. Abbott may conduct would actually be detrimental, it's just a case of whether it's worth the price being charged.

As far as his skills in chanbara, I've no idea as it is a totally seperate entity and has no real bearing on Japanese sword arts in my experience. I have both done and watched chanbara and, despite what many people try to insist, it really doesn't have much in common with actual sword arts. Loads of fun actually, but I wasn't very good at it since my training actually worked against me when doing chanbara.

Apologies if so, but I don't quite agree. I am reading the thread again, the other person didn't come into it until a bit later. The third quote could apply to either, it's hard to make exact sense of the message. Definitely the two others seem to refer to Mr. Abbott.

Regardless I am sure that if your son practices chanbara and the seminar is about chanbara, it will be a good time (at least I sure hope so).

Sorry Splice, I went back and took a look at the e-budo thread and you're correct in that the faked pictures of himself with various martial arts luminaries was definitely Abbott. Your last quote was about Ivica Zdravkovic though. I remember how offended Hyaku was by that fellow's actions at the time.

I can't speak to his technique never having seen it. But I did get a chance to meet him and found him to be aloof and very much the business/sport oriented martial artist. Also not interested in talking about his past or training in Japan. I also dislike some of his ads about "cutting through the mysteries of swordsmanship." Despite the fact that he didn't seem to have trained in any oldschool (koryu) arts. And for any man or woman to claim that is presumptues in my mind. Here is his companies website samurai sports